Category Archives: Our Land and Home

Anoka County, Garden, Great Wheel, Hydroponics, Jefferson County, Memories, Minnesota, Mountains, Our Land and Home, permaculture, Plants, Science, Shadow Mountain, The Move, The West, Third Phase, Weather +Climate

Gardner Me

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Fall and the RBG Moon

Kiss the Ground. Netflix. Not a huge fan of documentaries. Not sure why. I love fiction, not non-fiction books though I read them from time to time.

But this one. Recommended by long time friend Tom Crane. Didn’t say much new, maybe nothing for me, but it pulled my heart. Reminded me of who I’ve been. Who I’ve left behind.

Gardner me. That guy that used to spend hours planting flowers, amending soil, weeding the onions and the beans. Cutting raspberry canes back for the winter. Thinning the woods. Thinning the carrots and the beets. Lugging bags of compost. Bales of marsh hay. Planning flower beds so there would be something blooming during the entire growing season. Hunting for heirloom seeds.

I had plans. I read books about adapting gardening techniques in xericulture. Thought about this idea and that. Read a lot before our move. But, then. Prostate cancer and a cascade of other distractions. Divorce. Arthritis. Kate’s troubles.

The whole horticulture act slipped into yesterday. And I miss it. Even the cussing at the critters. A notable reminder. Heirloom Tomatoes. Oh, my god. I buy them when they’re good. Five bucks a pound. I eat them like the fruit they are as a fruit. The taste. So good. No comparison to those raised for mechanical harvesting. Not even the same thing, imho.

Our carrots and beets and leeks and garlic and beans. Our honeycrisp apples. Granny. Plums. Cherries. The onions drying on the old screen door in the shed Jon built. A basement pantry filled with canned vegetables, canned fruit. Jars of honey from Artemis Honey.

A greenhouse. That’s the only way I could return to gardening. I’m no longer strong enough for the kind of gardening we did in Andover, Minnesota. I’d need plants on a bench about hip height. But I’m seriously considering it. The dogs. Yes. Kate. Yes. But, plants, too. Our own food on our table. Nurturing plants. I’m sad I left it behind.

We’ll see.

Dogs, Family, Feelings, Health, Our Land and Home, Painting, Shadow Mountain, Third Phase, Weather +Climate, Writing

Open to Ideas

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Lughnasa, the Labor Day Moon and Mars

Afternoon note:

In a curious mental place. I’m calm, not spending time worrying about results or outcomes. I’m busy cooking, shopping, feeding, pilling, driving, listening, changing bandages. Organizing crafts people for work here. Dealing with my own health. Working out. Getting sleep. Zooming with friends, family, CBE.

I want to write and paint. I don’t seem able to. That’s not my way. I believe we choose our reality, live into the life we want. Ergo, if I’m not doing something I want to do, I’m not choosing it. An effective and self-motivating belief. Normally. I’m accountable for my life, no one else.

Right now though my mind seems full. That’s the way I experience it anyhow. I’m trying to work on my Groveland presentation for the 27th, It’s Beyond Me. That’s the title, not my problem, btw. I go along, get a little done, find a set of definitions or some great examples, like the Chukchee in 19th century Sibera who would bare their buttocks in the direction of the wind and ask for better weather, then I wander away, no longer interested.

Not procrastination. Sure, I indulge from time to time, but it’s never been a defining feature for me. Not lack of sleep. I’m rested and exercised.

A similar phenomenon when I want to write, paint. When I say write, I mean work on Jennie’s Dead, my current novel about half done. I can’t put myself in the writing mental space. Can’t pick up a brush. Not blocked, Not afraid. My energy seems all used by life.

The other things I’m doing take attention to detail, regular action, compassion, endurance, imagination, follow through. Yes, I know that. But I’ve not had this trouble before that I recall.

When I want to do something other than domestic things, my mind goes fuzzy, unwilling to open, to wonder, to create. No space for it. That’s how it feels.

Might just be the way things are. Or, there may be a solution? Not sure. Open to ideas.

Aging, Cinema and Television, Dogs, Family, Feelings, Friends, GeekWorld, Health, Our Land and Home, Shadow Mountain, Third Phase, Weather +Climate

Zoombies

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Lughnasa and the Labor Day Moon

Monday gratefuls: Rigel’s appetite. Kep’s centeredness. Our home. Kate feeling better last night. Chicken and blueberries and asparagus and beets. Our front, cleaner, more natural after the stump grinding. The night sky, visible now at 5 a.m. 36 degrees this morning.

Cold here overnight. Down to 36. Refreshing, invigorating. Up early, 4:30 a.m. with enough sleep. I go to bed early, around 8 p.m. The night Sky. Don’t see it much when I get up later, around 5:30 or 6:00 a.m. though that’s changing as the Great Wheel turns toward the vernal equinox.

Kate had a hard day yesterday with shortness of breath and not feeling well. I moved a TV into the bedroom. She can watch NCIS and Blue Bloods while resting. She feels better lying down. Our agreement is that the TV goes off when I come to bed. This is a change from her last year and a half when she read through books in a day or two, filling shelves of books she had read.

Rigel’s appetite, boosted by the prednisone she’s on for fever control, is good. She’s gradually returning to her old habits, a couple of cups of dry food with some wet food mixed in. Since her time in the hospital, she’s eaten a lot of canned food. It all has to be single protein, rabbit. That makes it expensive, three to four dollars a can. And she’s a big dog.

Zoombies. Don’t know why I haven’t seen this word yet, but it’s my neologism now. This is the zoombie apocalypse, characterized by so many seen but not felt. I don’t find that zoom eats my brain, but I do know it can cause a deadening if done too much. Many working at home have overloaded.

Yesterday the old zoombies met for what Paul calls our church. The topic was staying healthy as we age. A table with four legs: diet & exercise, relationships, sleep, and regular medical care. Couldn’t remember medical care as the fourth leg so I added curiosity. That works, too. So, five legs.

What we’re trying to do is lengthen healthspan, that period of life where you can do what you want to do with minimal interference from frailty or disease. As we age, so many of us experience dire insults that don’t kill us, but do render us weaker, less able to engage in our lives as we used to know them.

Ideas from the zoombie session: exercise bands, going to the club, cleanses of various sorts, walking, physical labor, interval training, workouts from a trainer, staying in touch with loved ones, with friends, with dogs.

I mentioned curiosity because it acknowledges mystery, wonder, and an openness to the future without trying to control it.

Here’s to your health, your loved ones health. May you live long and prosper.

Colorado, Denver, Family, Great Wheel, Great Work, Jefferson County, Minnesota, Mountains, Our Land and Home, Park County, Plants, Shadow Mountain, The Move, US History, Weather +Climate

Bloody Sun

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Lughnasa and the Labor Day Moon

Tuesday and Wednesday gratefuls: Kate’s DEXA scan for bone density. Ruby’s a.c. for the drive. Euphoria on HBO. Ruth’s new favorite show. Rigel’s improving appetite. Amber. Mountain Waste. The blood red morning Sun. Teenagers. The complexity of their lives, made even more complex by Covid. The orange excrescence and what he’s showing us about our country.

The dawn Sun here bleeds for the Fires burning through the West. The clouds show their concern with reflected color. Northern California and the Western Slope of Colorado are aflame. Their smoke and ash foul the Air we breath even up here on Shadow Mountain.

We live in the Arapaho National Forest, filled with Lodgepole Pine and Aspen stressed by drought, valley meadows with a summer’s growth of Grasses, also dry. The National Forest Service warning signs have pegged their highest mark, Extreme, for weeks now.

Western life. Punctuated by drought. Rejuvenated by Fire. Relieved by heavy Mountain Snows. For thousands of years. “Go, West, young man.” We did. But we white folk are not nomadic. We do not know where a village can be safe. We just build. Glass and steel. Hardie board and shingles. Permanent. As if there were no fire. No drought. These are strategies of the humid East, dangerous in the arid West.

As Greeley’s famous invitation flooded the West with people from the East, pushing out, slaughtering the people who knew how to move with the seasons, we made the same mistakes over and over. I’m living in one right now. It’s beautiful here on Shadow Mountain, but this house will burn. And that’s what Lodgepole Pine Forests do. They burn. All the Trees. Leaving fertile ground for a new Ecosystem.

Humans make mistakes. Often. And the consequences are sometimes horrific. Sometimes wonderful. Human life is one long unintentional adventure in empiricism. Oh, if we do that, this happens. Some of our mistakes lead us to lives otherwise impossible. Like our life here on Shadow Mountain.

Kate and I understand that we might be living here when the Forests catch Fire. That our home may be temporary. We choose to stay for the same reasons populations of us Eastern folk spotted all over the Mountains and Intramontane regions out here do. It’s beautiful and close to the Wild Life, a reminder of a world not controlled by humans.

Oh, yes, there’s a paradox. Live where it’s not safe. Why would we do that? We’re mistake makers, non-linear decision makers. We’re human.

Colorado, Cooking, Denver, Dogs, Family, Feelings, Health, Jefferson County, Memories, Mountains, Our Land and Home, Plants, Shadow Mountain, Third Phase, US History, Weather +Climate

Water

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Lughnasa and the Labor Day Moon

Sunday gratefuls: Jon, Ruth, Gabe. All here to celebrate Grandma’s birthday. The specific Animals that gave their lives for our meal: scallops and a tri-tip steak. The heat. When it leaves. Jon and Ruth’s happiness with the gift of Ivory. (our 2011 Rav4). Gabe’s “Air hug. I love you Grandpop.” Rigel at home. The chance to cook for a crowd. Kate. Always Kate.

Didn’t do much for Kate’s birthday on Tuesday. Lots of stuff going on before, that day, and after. But we hit it yesterday. Grandkids. Scallops. The gift of empanadas from Jon and the kids. Rigel up and about. When they left we both collapsed, as usual. A good exhaustion. Happy to see them come. Happy to see them go.

Record heat in Denver. Hot up here, too. Not by other spots standards, I know, but we’ve become acclimated to a cooler day.

You can’t see the Mountains from Denver. Jon. All this smoke and haze, heavy particulates has obscured us. We’re still here. The haze is here and the smell of smoke hangs in the Air like a harbinger. It’s bad further west, but the Wildfire threat is extreme here, too. Humidity at 16. The Ground Water evaporates. The stress on Trees and Grasses grows with the lack of precipitation. A grim reminder that we’re all part of this Ecosystem.

Ruth said that Animals from the Foothills are fleeing into metro Denver. People have been asked to leave water out for them. Can’t do it here. Habituation. Which kills Animals rather than helps them.

The arid West is not the humid East. The Mountains are not the Plains. Whether we realize it all the time or not, our lives have Water as a disruptive actor. The lack of it. Water from the Western Slope, for example, goes to Denver through huge tunnels and pipes. The southern burbs of Denver have depleted much of the Aquifer that sits beneath them. Long periods of dryness lead to extreme conditions for agriculture, Wildlife, and our Forests. The Colorado River Compact promises more Water to its downstream users like Las Vegas, Arizona, and Los Angeles than actually flows through it.

Diane, my San Francisco based cousin, told me about the book, Cadillac Desert, long ago. That piqued my interest in Water. I’ve been fascinated ever since. The way the Plains states like Kansas, Nebraska, South Dakota, and even parts of Oklahoma and Texas have based their economies on the Ogallala Aquifer, an enormous reservoir of mostly ancient Water that underlies them. No Aquifer, no amber waves of Grain, no fruited Plains. The Great Lakes. Now, the Colorado River.

Consider the Water where you are. It is Life itself. Worthy of your attention.

Cooking, Dogs, Dreams, Family, Feelings, Friends, Health, Judaism, Mountains, Our Land and Home, Shadow Mountain, Third Phase

When in need

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Lughnasa and the Labor Day Moon

Thursday gratefuls: Rigel’s strength. The docs at VRCC. Tara. Kate. Amber, two gratefuls for Amber. Wildfires. Extreme Fire Danger. Kep. Ruth. Kate’s sisters. Shadow Mountain. Black Mountain. The Arapaho National Forest. All the wild critters that live within it.

Rigel. Steroids bringing her fever down. Down into normal range. Seeing now if that can last. If so, she may come home today. If not today, tomorrow. She’s strong, otherwise healthy. Dr. Baylis, who diagnosed her allergy to chicken protein, said yesterday that a six week course of oral anti-biotics could find her back to normal. The stroke risk remains though I don’t know how to evaluate it. Guardedly optimistic.

Had a dream last night. A big brown dog bounded through the house. I turned to Kate and said, “Oh, you went in and picked up Rigel!” She’s in my heart. Forever.

Kate seems to have found her advocate about her feeding tube. Amber. Amber is physical therapist with a specialty in wound care. Since the feeding tube goes through the skin, it is a permanent wound. Healing it requires preventing fluids from leaking out onto Kate’s skin.

We’re now thinking that the tube, which was placed in a small part of her stomach left after bariatric surgery, may need to go where we originally thought it was going, into her jejunum. A J-tube. Would require surgery again. Grrr. But if that’s what it takes, we’ll go there.

Amber got the operative report yesterday and found a denser nutrient supplement for Kate’s feedings. That might help, too. It would supply more calories per unit and allow her to slow down the rate of feeding without making it take a really long time. That could help with the leakage.

We’re going back to see Amber today. Might have some news on this later.

Meanwhile my friend Tara has talked me through the recent disturbance in my psyche. She asked me how things were going on, I think, the same day that I told Kate I couldn’t clean the house and cook as much. I told Tara how things were right then. She offered to do many things, but the one I needed was to talk.

So we’ve met for an hour each week since. Three weeks. I calmed down after the first conversation. Over the course of our three talks I’ve come to realize that stuff here: Kate’s, Rigel’s, the house’s, The Denver Olson’s: Jon, Ruth, Gabe, occupy most of my free mental territory. That’s what I meant when I said I could no longer clean and cook as much. Or, rather, at that point stuff occupied more mental territory than I had free. My hard drive had crashed.

With Tara and the Ancient Friends and the Clan I’ve opened up some space and feel better now. Thanks to you all.

Cooking, Dogs, Family, Friends, Health, Judaism, Mussar, Our Land and Home, Shadow Mountain, Third Phase

Whole lotta billin’ goin’ on

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Lughnasa and the Labor Day Moon

Wednesday gratefuls: Mussar MVP. Silence. Guarding speech. Ron. Susan. Jamie. Marilyn. Rich. Kate. Tara. Judy. Rigel’s temperature down to 102.1. Our emergency fund. Vanguard. Peak Windows. We can see clearly now. Kep keeping his humans safe. Clean gutters. Getting my password back for solar panel monitoring. Our mailbox with the door in the back. No more standing on the road to collect mail. Ruth and Gabe. Steven, the snail.

Rigel remains in the hospital with a guarded diagnosis. The iv antibiotics and steroids seem to be bringing her fever down, but the chances of a stroke remain, and will remain even if she survives this episode. This is due to what doctors charmingly call vegetation on her mitral valve. If this vegetation breaks loose, it could cause a pulmonary embolism or a stroke. Nothing to be done about that risk, either.

I go to sleep imagining myself with Rigel, testing a connection that is as strong as I’ve had with a dog. Rigel lies in her crate, feeling miserable, and I try to comfort her. Probably hooey, but it makes me feel better.

You never realize how dirty your windows are until you’ve had them professionally cleaned. They’re transparent! Peak Windows came yesterday to celebrate Kate’s birthday. Did a great job. Clean gutters, too, heading into ice dam season. Also recommended for fire mitigation. Pine needles in the gutter can catch fire.

The last week showed how bills can stack up all of a sudden. Rigel in the vet hospital. Kate’s dentures. And, yesterday, my long-term care insurance. Yike. Not to mention quarterly taxes due next month. We’ve got it, but not without some pain.

Kate turned 76 yesterday. A quiet birthday though we’re going to celebrate on Saturday with Jon and the grandkids. With phone calls, Peak Windows, and Rigel in the hospital, then MVP which goes late for us, her birthday wore her out.

Here’s an interesting note. I wrote a post on Nextdoor Shadow Mountain extolling Easy Entrees. Got lots of hits. And, this morning I found a private message from Laura, who apparently owns Easy Entrees. My post brought tears to her eyes, she said. And, she deposited one hundred dollars in my Easy Entree account. Wow. Thanks, Laura.

Dogs, Family, Health, Our Land and Home, Shadow Mountain, Third Phase

The Good News

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Lughnasa and the Lughnasa Moon

Thursday gratefuls: Tara. Taryle. Kelly, the gutter cleaner. Ruth and Gabe, the snail wranglers. Claretin. Jackie, our hair stylist. The fan in our bedroom. Kate’s capacity to adapt to new realities. Her microwave bowls. Kamala Harris. The excitement over the Democratic ticket. The chance to dethrone the naked emperor in November.

And so. The pulmonologist. Dr. Taryle is a gnome, an old gnome, older than either one of us, I’m sure. He works as a pulmonologist for National Jewish Hospital, the premiere respiratory hospital in the U.S. He’s been clear, focused, and attentive to data and detail. He knows his specialty and cares about Kate.

He also said her lung condition is stable. That’s good, right? Well. Yes. Sorta. He looked at her CT, listened to her lungs, heard her story about recent shortness of breath. Among the other things going on, I can say the lungs are stable. Well, can you give me something, anything to help? I don’t think it’s called for. Those meds cause nausea, diarrhea, fatigue. Oh, well.

Which leaves us in a weird place. Her cardiologist, after an echocardiogram, says her heart is not the issue. No pulmonary hypertension. Her pulmonologist says her interstitial lung disease is stable. Yet she’s still out of breath after coming up four stairs or going out to her sewing room to water her plants. Not sure what to do next.

A positive is Kate’s new, more regular use of Zofran, an anti-nausea drug. It seems to help with her eating. She lost weight over the last couple of weeks, down to 90 pounds. If she can add some calories by mouth, we should be able to get her up to her target range between 95 and 105.

Rigel’s foot, now wrapped in a neon pink bandage, has gotten better. Her gate is normal. The bandage comes off this evening. Kep goes in for another grooming session on Sunday. As a double-coated breed, Akita’s shed a lot. And, by a lot, I mean, a lot. The only antidote is regular grooming.

Kelly, the gutter guy, came by yesterday. He put a ladder up on the roof, then climbed up and walked around cleaning the gutters. He did this on the garage, too. A much taller roof. Would have scared me. An ice dam and fire mitigation service. The same company sends us window cleaners next week.

Debating right now whether resurfacing our driveway and extending the asphalt to the garage makes sense. About seven grand. Or, should we stain the house? Probably about the same. Or, should we do neither? Like a new roof these are big ticket maintenance items that have to be done on occasion. Is this the time?

Family, Health, Mountains, Our Land and Home, Shadow Mountain, Third Phase

Hard Stuff

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Lughnasa and the Lughnasa Moon

Thursday gratefuls: Amber. Lisa and the humming bird feeder. Dr. Pullikottli. Kate’s fingers healing. Ruby and her a.c. Mule Deer Buck. The intimacy of difficulty. All those carboniferous trees and plants that gave their lives so I can drive my car. Electric Cars. Go, Tesla. Echocardiograms. Chicken breasts. Read to eat meals.

Two weeks of no workouts. Marking a slow down or at least different focus for daily life. Dug down into my psyche. Like a retreat. Still surfacing. Yesterday I found myself up against it. I can’t keep cleaning the house, I said. I can’t manage the cooking in the way I have been. More tears.

I felt like I was letting Kate down. No, she said. You have been my pillar, my strength. I don’t say it often enough. Oh.

This, she said, is why people downsize. Yes. There’s a moment when you realize, no, I can’t take care of all this anymore.

Is this that time for us? No. We can afford a house cleaner. Kate will find one. I can buy meal kits, ready to eat food. Cook much less. Occasional take-out. Relief.

Derek has done a fabulous job in clearing up our downed trees. The pallets are gone. The front stumps have been ground. The place looks so much better. Will James will take down the remaining fire mitigation marked trees. Next week the gutters get cleaned and the week after the windows.

Ordered beef stroganoff with egg noodles from a chef run ready to eat meal business with an unlikely location. It’s at the base of Conifer Mountain, about 5 minutes away. Ezentrees.com. Looks pretty good.

We both love mountain living, even with its obvious drawbacks for our mutual lung issues. This house suits us. Large enough to house family on occasion, small enough to feel homey for us. The loft for me. These decisions are so fraught, so wrapped up in the past, in our expectations, in cultural values around home. And, independence.

We’ll keep jiggering with paid work, family help, and our own efforts. Hard stuff though.

Anoka County, Bees, Dogs, Family, Garden, Great Wheel, Hydroponics, Memories, Minnesota, Our Land and Home, permaculture, Plants, The Move, Third Phase

Greenman

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Lughnasa and the Lughnasa Moon

Tuesday grateful: The Lughnasa moon just setting below Black Mountain. That one violet volunteering near our front steps. The daisies. The faint whoosh of folks going to work. Ruth. Her eagerness to see us. Their garden and her joy in it. Seeing Patty yesterday. Banking. Socrates, the teller.

Gardening. At the end of my time on the Ancient Ones zoom, I surprised myself by summing up my life as having one regret. Gardening. That we hadn’t pursued it here on Shadow Mountain. I miss, I said, growing our own food. Working with soil and plants. I do. Miss it.

Once Kate and I moved to Andover a transition began for me from city boy to horticulturalist. I wouldn’t have predicted that necessarily. We’d done some perennials at our home on Edgcumbe road. Starting with the small bed I planted in the front yard, finishing during the great Halloween blizzard of October 31st, 1991. Daffodils and Iris, if I recall correctly.

It’s true I had a big garden back in 1974 on the Peaceable Kingdom, my failed attempt, with Judy, to develop a spot for the movement to have respite care. My only Psilocybin journey happened there. I watched our Potato plants growing. But the Peaceable Kingdom did not last and neither did gardening.

A bit of gardening at the first house, the one on 41st Avenue, but Slugs took over. There was no gardening at home in Alexandria. A few Flowers maybe, but nothing to remember.

Andover, though. When we got there, the front yard was bare, as was a sloped area behind the house in the back. About an acre of Woods were doing fine, as undisturbed Woods will do. In between was a large patch of weedy, scrubby Grass with a large grove of Black Locust. They didn’t look good, some of them were dead. BTW: many of the Weeds were actually Hemp plants seeded during a World War II field planted in it.

We hired a landscape architect who helped us with the bare Land. I wanted to sow a Prairie on all of it. Kate said no, we could never sell it. We settled on two large areas of Prairie with sod and some new Trees in between them, directly in front of the house. On the sloping area behind the house we decided to do a terraced garden. Irrigation went in with all of it.

In the beginning I wanted to do only perennials. I imagined our house overflowing with fresh cut flowers throughout the growing season. I had a lot to learn. Having flowers blooming from spring into fall requires so many skills.

I did not want to do annuals. And, I didn’t. Along the way I learned about soil amendments, spading forks and gardening spades, trowels, and hori-hori. Killed a lot of plants. Cussed at Rose Chafers, Japanese Beetles, Colorado Beetles. Along the way I fell in love with the families Lily and Iris and crocus. Learned the amazing recovery powers of Hosta.

The Black Locust and their small swords taught me caution and how to use a chain saw, a commercial grade chipper, a Peavey, a Swede saw. Hired stump grinders. I cleared, with Jon’s help, enough area that we could imagine a vegetable garden. Jon built us raised beds from the start, anticipating the day when bending over would not be easy. He made some in whimsical shapes, others square, some rectangular. I filled them with top soil and compost.

We had various compost piles, none of which worked very well. We built one that used split rail fencing and a large metal gate to keep the dogs out. Tully, one of our Wolfhounds, kept finding her way in. But she couldn’t get back out. Strange.

Speaking of Wolfhounds. Jon built a fence around the raised beds to keep them out. They loved to dig in soft garden soil.

More on this later. This has gotten long.